The Porn Star and the President - Part VI

 

The Porn Star and the President – Part VI

(A Story of Lying)

 

 IN PART V, INVESTIGATORS CLOSE IN ON THE PRESIDENT AND HIS LAWYER, MICHAEL COHEN. 

COHEN KNOWS ALL KINDS OF DETAILS ABOUT CONTACTS WITH THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIANS. THEN HE DECIDES TO TAKE A PLEA DEAL IN THE CASE INVOLVING ILLEGAL PAYMENTS TO THE PORN STAR AND OTHERS. TRUMP IS INCREASINGLY ANGRY.

12/8/18: There’s semi-positive news for Team Trump regarding at least one of several current investigations. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, has been chastised by prosecutors from the Southern District of New York for his less than completely truthful cooperation. 

So, who’s going to believe that guy in court – when he says his old boss is a crook? 

 

He acted in coordination with Individual 1. 

Trump tweets on Friday that recent developments in the Russian investigation have wiped any stain from his name. “Totally clears the President,” he tweets at one point. “Thank you!” 

In reality, prosecutors note that while Cohen paid off a pair of women who had dirt on his boss: “with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of [Individual 1].” Cohen is admitting to a pair of felonies and prosecutors believe both were committed at Trump’s request. 

It gets worse if you’re a fan of President Trump. Court papers filed on Cohen and General Michael T. Flynn, and a third filing on Paul Manafort hardly clear the president or any other man, woman or child who has been part of his team.

 

First, consider what Cohen’s plea deal means. Trump likes to insist that Mueller and his team of 1,000,000 “Angry Democrats” are out to get him. His base should not believe prosecutors no matter how much evidence they compile. The problem for Trump when it comes to trying to convince supporters to discount cases originating in the Southern District of New York is that the man in charge is an appointee of Donald J. Trump. And while filings in Cohen’s case in New York recommend he serve up to four years in jail, and question his cooperation, in another filing, by Mueller and his team, prosecutors note that Cohen has provided “useful information about matters relating to ongoing investigations being carried out by this office.” In these matters, prosecutors “assessed Cohen to be forthright and credible, and the information he provided was largely consistent with other evidence gathered.” 

You don’t have to be smarter than a rock to understand the danger lurking in those simple sentences for Team Trump. 

There are other investigations continuing, related to Cohen and his work for then Candidate Trump. 

Investigators have “other evidence” they can use. 

Records show, for example, that the Trump Organization paid Cohen back $130,000, after he paid off a porn star to keep her quiet. Then Cohen was paid an extra $60,000 to “gross up” his take – that is, enough to pay any taxes he’d owe. Cohen received $420,000 during the 2016 campaign. All payments were labeled “legal fees.” That would seem to indicate a conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws and cover up any crimes. 

(See: Blogger’s Note, below.)

 

We know that Allen Weisselberg, Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization, has been granted immunity to testify. What would he testify about? A person “not authorized to speak” about the investigation told reporters that Weisselberg might not have known these payments, including another to silence a Playboy Bunny, were illegal. He might not have known what they were for and that would mean he’d done nothing illegal. The New York Times quoted this person as saying, in effect: “Mr. Cohen often did personal legal work for the president and his family. That kind of work was generally performed with few, if any, questions asked.” 

In other words, Cohen was close enough to Trump to do the dirty work, and no one wanted to know what he was doing. 

 

“Core topics under investigation.” 

For Trump, it only gets worse when we consider all the court filings. Prosecutors note that Cohen has been forthright and has provided valuable information “on core topics under investigation.” 

Finally, court documents in the case of Manafort hint at additional minefields Trump and members of inner circle will soon have to cross. Investigators say Manafort lied even after signing a plea agreement. Currently residing in jail, he has repeatedly contacted members of the administration not yet in jail, while insisting he has not. 

How do investigators know? 

They have written and electronic communications. 

That means:

 

A)    Any member of Team Trump who has talked to Cohen about Russian outreach to the campaign could be in jeopardy.

 

B)     Anyone who urged Flynn to cover up contacts with Russia could soon be hurting, legally.

 

C)    Anyone at the White House who talked to Manafort recently, including floating the possibility of a pardon, could be involved in a criminal conspiracy, and would surely be indicted.

 

UPDATE (4/15/24): As we know now, the President of the United States successfully stymied the Mueller investigation. But almost everyone else in this story spent time in prison – or should have. 

Starting today, the central issue in the New York trial may come down to a charge of conspiracy. That is, did Donald J. Trump – both as Citizen –and later –President Trump, participate in a conspiracy to disguise payoffs to porn stars and Playboy bunnies as legitimate legal fees – paid to Mr. Cohen.

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12/13/18: Today, we learn that in two years of fighting the bloody “War on Coal,” Trump and his warrior band have managed to put 2,500 miners back to work. 

 

Crimes are not crimes! 

On the other hand, these are boom times for the legal profession. I believe the president, alone, has put at least that many lawyers in new jobs.  

Of course, we need to subtract one barrister. Namely: Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal fixer, now unemployed, save for talking to investigators, and likely headed for jail. 

According to Trump, however, Cohen didn’t really commit any crimes.  

Okay, technically, prosecutors charged him with two felonies related to campaign finance violations.  

And Cohen plead guilty to those felonies.  

Yes. True. The judge sentenced him to jail because he committed those felonies – and six others to boot.  

The president simply insists crimes are not crimes. 

Oddly enough, Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, says Trump knew all about illegal payments to two women, Stormy Daniels, and Karen McDougal, to keep their salacious tales out of the press.  

The president insists he never.  

 

* 

“Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?”

THE PRESIDENT’S propaganda pals at Fox News want you to believe their orange boy would never tell a lie, like George Washington with his little hatchet, only not the kind of boy who would grow up and go off and fight for his country. 

(Rather: a little boy with bone spurs.)

In a similar situation, Trump would lie - and we all know it.

 

Now, both Trump and the Fox crew have to hope you won’t remember the moment last April, when the President of the United States, aboard Air Force One, enjoyed this little chat with reporters. 

 

QUESTION: Mr. President, did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?

THE PRESIDENT: No. No. What else?

 

Q: Then why did Michael Cohen make those if there was no truth to her allegations?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. And you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen.

Q: Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t know. No.

Q: Did you ever set up a fund of money that he could draw from?

 

Trump never answered that last question, choosing instead to talk about E.P.A. head Scott Pruitt, who he said was a “good man,” doing a “fantastic job.”  

Here we should give a shout out to Pruitt for his role in helping bring the legal profession to full employ. Pruitt resigned as head of the E.P.A. in July. At the time, even Fox News had to admit Pruitt was implicated in all kinds of swampy deeds: including using E.P.A. funds to hire a GOP media firm to “praise Scott Pruitt.” (Your tax dollars hard at work, cleaning up, not the environment, but the reputation of Mr. Scott Pruitt!) By the time he quit and crawled out of the D.C. swamp, soaked to the skin, and covered in muck, Pruitt was the subject of “13 federal inquiries [emphasis added] into his spending and management practices.”  

But – Cohen – we were talking Cohen! Back to Cohen. 

Unfortunately for Mr. Trump, his old lawyer has now chosen to reveal a tape of Trump talking about illegal payments to the second woman, Karen McDougal. You could listen as Cohen told his boss that he was about to set up a company to disguise the source of the payments. He mentions “David.” “I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with…” Cohen continues. 

“So what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Trump interrupts.  

Trump doesn’t interrupt to say, “I never boinked that Playboy Bunny and I’m not paying $150,000 through a shell company to keep her story out of the news to protect my campaign. You know me, Michael. I never bend or break or completely ignore the law.”  

In reality, the two discuss how to make the payment – cash or check.  

 

Trump really said, “Don’t pay!”  

The tape was damning from first word to last. That meant you needed more lawyers to do more fast talking. Rudy Giuliani stepped in front of the cameras and assured reporters that Trump really said Cohen shouldn’t pay.  

That claim makes no sense if you listen to the conversation. Rudy stuck with his cover story and kept sending Trump the legal bills. (For a similarly absurd battle over the president’s actual words, see: 7/17/18.)  

Once the tape was out, the president started rage-tweeting about what a terrible, creepy louse Cohen had always been! (For a radically different view, expressed by Trump, see: 4/19/18.) 

Unfortunately, prosecutors revealed this week that “David” and his company, David Pecker and American Media, Inc., had signed an immunity deal and also ratted out Trump. Pecker, Cohen, and then-Candidate Trump had in fact met in August 2015 to discuss ways to silence the two women, and protect the campaign, meaning campaign finance violations were almost certainly committed. 

___ 

 

12/17/18: Recent developments in the Mueller probe cannot be soothing to the president’s jangled nerves. In the course of just five days, Horndog Rudy G. goes on TV to offer the “I’m rubber, you’re glue” defense of his boss. If Michael Cohen says Trump directed him to make illegal hush money payments and lie during testimony before Congress, Giuliani says you can’t believe a guy like Cohen, because Cohen’s going to “sing” as loud as he must in order to avoid spending three years in jail. He can’t be trusted. “He’s changed his story four or five times.” 

 

“The president’s not under oath.” 

George Stephanopoulos, hosting the show on which Rudy appears, replies: “So has the president.” 

“The President’s not under oath,” Rudy smiles like a man who has had too many Mimosas at brunch. Then, to make his position clear, he adds that he’s not about to let his client testify under oath. “Over my dead body,” he says. 

Let’s recap. According to Rudy:

 

A)    The president can’t lie as long as he’s not under oath.

 

B)     The president is never going to testify under oath.

 

C)    If Trump does testify under oath, lies, and gets caught, no problem. He can pardon himself.

 

Still, it’s clear the president is unnerved. In one of his tweets, which raises legal experts’ eyebrows, he refers to Cohen as a “rat” because Cohen is cooperating with state and federal prosecutors.

 

Pursuing a deal up until November 2016. 

Stop a moment and consider the matter of who has changed his story most, Cohen, or Trump. Originally, the president told everyone, including the First Lady, that he didn’t know about hush money payments to two women during his campaign. Cohen testified under oath that Trump did. When it was revealed that documents backed Cohen’s story, the president admitted he knew about the payments, but insisted those payments had nothing to do with his campaign. So, they weren’t campaign finance violations! Then David Pecker, head of American Media Inc., who has immunity from prosecution, testified that Trump knew about the payments all along and asked Pecker to hide them to…protect his campaign. 

With each passing day, the story spun further and further out of control. Cohen had once claimed any deal to get a Trump Tower built in Moscow ended by January 2016. Now he admitted, and documents supported his testimony, that the deal was in the works as late as the summer of 2016. 

The fishy story became even fishier after Giuliani appeared on TV again this week. Now he admitted, well, come to think of it, Trump and his pirate pals were pursuing the deal up until November 2016. Possibly that business deal – with the Russians – was in the works up to Election Day. 

Trump himself admitted long ago that working on a deal while running for president would have been a conflict, and said he never pursued it. Now Rudy had no other recourse than to argue that where there is no harm there is no foul. A candidate trying to cash in big with the Russians, that candidate perhaps having worked with Russians hoping to swing the U.S. election? Where’s the harm in that? 

The deal was never consummated.

___

 

UPDATE (4/15/24): The free press often does good service, holding criminals and scuzz bags to account – when most of us are too busy getting dinner ready, watching Friends reruns, or unclogging lavatory toilets to gather any evidence. My blog post for 12/27/18, highlighted several cases where reporters were able to verify portions of the Steele Dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele – and hated ever since by Fat Donald Trump. 

A report from McClatchy at that time, however, had Mueller’s investigators placing Cohen in Prague in the summer of 2016, just as Steele had suggested. 

This claim did not hold up.

___ 

 

1/10/19: Mark your calendars. Set your alarm. Schedule a day of vacation. Or call in sick – with Trump Flu. 

Shit’s about to get real! 

Donald Trump’s former fixer and longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, has agreed to testify voluntarily, under oath, before the House Oversight Committee. Cohen, who will appear on February 7, has already pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in a previous session. He will return knowing he’s headed to jail in March. 

Here we should briefly note: If this were North Korea under Kim Jong-un or Iraq under Saddam or Russia under Putin, Cohen would be dead. This might explain why President Trump is always eager to praise authoritarian rulers. You figure he’s jealous of the powers they possess. 

What does Trump have to fear if his former fixer spills six cans of beans? First, Cohen has tapes of conversations (a lawyer may legally tape a client without consent in the State of New York). Second, we know investigators in the Southern District of New York seized hundreds of thousands of pages of documents in raids on Cohen’s home, office, and safe deposit box. Third, Cohen knows where the financial bodies are buried. He can testify about hush money payments during the 2016 campaign and how Trump wanted those payments made, about the secret company they set up, and the documents filled with pseudonyms they used. 

 

____________________ 

Trump didn’t come forward to correct his fixer.

____________________ 

 

Even more damaging, we know Cohen lied about efforts to pursue a mega-million-dollar deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. When collusion was nothing more than a glimmer in James Comey’s eye, Cohen had already started lying, insisting negotiations for a Moscow deal ended in January 2016. 

Trump didn’t come forward to correct his fixer – when it would have been easy. He insisted he had no dealings in Russia. He wouldn’t think of having such dealings because – well – that would be a conflict of interest for a person running for president. (You can have fun and go back and listen to the “Fake News” story from CNN, which we now know was accurate and non-fake). Today we find that Cohen and the president’s current lawyer, Horndog Rudy Giuliani, agree. Negotiations were continuing right up till Election Day and the payoff could have been huge. Cohen once predicted the deal could be worth “hundreds of millions” for Mr. Trump. 

So: What potential torpedoes can Cohen put through the hull of the U.S.S. Trump? 

Cohen admits he lied to Congress. Trump surrogates will be going all out, claiming we can’t believe Cohen, because he’s an admitted liar. But what if Cohen can prove he lied to Congress because Trump ordered him to? That’s a torpedo to the boiler room, right there. 

Cohen has hinted that he knows about a planning meeting, prior to the secret Trump Tower New York meeting with Russians, and that Candidate Trump knew all about that earlier meeting. If he can prove that Trump lied again that’s a torpedo that blows off the ship’s rudder. 

Cohen can sink the U.S.S. Trump once and for all, with a shot to the bow, if he reveals tax evasion by Candidate Trump. 

How scared is the president? This week we learn that the White House has hired 17 new lawyers to guard Mr. Trump.

 

 

TRUMP FOR PRE$IDENT 2016

___ 

 

2/8/19: The court news keeps coming. On Friday, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III denied media requests for release of all court records in the case of Michael Cohen, the president’s former personal lawyer. 

 

“Witness tampering, harassment, or retaliation.” 

Pauley ruled that documents related to Cohen’s financial crimes could be released. But documents related to two other felonies had to remain sealed or could be released only in redacted form. 

An observer in court explained:

 

The judge said prosecutors had opposed the media requests, saying disclosure “would jeopardize an ongoing investigation and prejudice the privacy rights of uncharged third parties.”

 

…He said the search warrant applications and affidavits supporting them “catalogue an assortment of uncharged individuals and detail their involvement in communications and transactions connected to the campaign finance charges to which Cohen pled guilty.”

 

…The judge added: “At this stage, wholesale disclosure of the materials would reveal the scope and direction of the Government’s ongoing investigation. It would also unveil subjects of the investigation and the potential conduct under scrutiny, the full volume and nature of the evidence gathered thus far, and the sources of information provided to the Government.”

 

In a separate story, Politico added:

 

“And if the past is any prologue, unmasking those who are cooperating with the Government’s investigation or who have otherwise provided information to the Government could deter further cooperation with the investigation by ‘subject[ing] those individuals to witness tampering, harassment, or retaliation [emphasis added],’” the judge added.

 

It didn’t take a genius to figure out who might be doing the harassing. And who was doing the witness tampering. And what corpulent orange guy might be subject of the continuing investigation. 

Hint: his or her initials are DJT. 

UPDATE (4/15/24): Trump is up to his old tricks, as the trial starts in April 2024. He has been lambasting anyone who might cause him trouble in court – not to mention their various relatives.)